The Law Society of Upper Canada will change its name because a majority of its elected benchers, 38-11, agreed with an internal report that the term for the former British colony is non-inclusive, offensive, elitist, out of date and out of touch.

But rather than immediately switch to become the Law Society of Ontario, which the report recommended, the executive board will convene in November to consider what new name they should choose. All indications are that Law Society of Ontario is top of the list, but there have been previous efforts to call it the Ontario Law Society.

“Our role at the Law Society is to act in the public interest and serve the public, which means we need to be more visible and establish ourselves as the place to turn for legal help and information,” said Paul Schabas, who as Treasurer holds the Law Society’s highest elected office. “It had become apparent that the ‘Upper Canada’ part of our name, while liked by many in the profession, was not only confusing for the public, but actually was a barrier to people contacting us, or knowing who we are and what we do.”

The name change arose from a strategic communications review, chaired by lawyer Julian Falconer, which included a public survey. The resulting report described an identity crisis for the Law Society, in which the public is unaware of its role as the regulator for the legal professions in Ontario.

The reasons for the recommended name change were varied. The report concluded that the general public “do not know what Upper Canada is, and those who do are confused by its use in the Law Society’s name.”

Upper Canada was geographically much smaller than Ontario is today, and the term itself is “a non-inclusive phrase, which is also offensive to some,” and as an “anachronism,” the name is “inconsistent with the image the Law Society wishes to portray of a modern and inclusive regulator.”

The report also notes that a name change would reflect the Law Society’s “wider efforts to engage with Indigenous peoples.”

Some members of the Law Society complained that the proposed new name lacks the dignity of the old, and breaks a valued historical continuity, or that it creates the illusion of inclusivity without actually doing anything of substance.

Ian Holloway, Dean of Law at the University of Calgary, wrote in Canadian Lawyer magazine that the name change is “nothing more than superficial window dressing that won’t alter how the public feels about us one iota. But what it will do is cause us to lose some of our sense of professional identity. For in a precedent-based system such as the common law, it is conceptually impossible to understand the present without having a sense of the past.”

He pointed out, for example, that Schabas’s title as “treasurer” is also an inaccurate anachronism that some people might wrongly interpret as meaning he “keeps the books.”

“But that gives us a teachable moment,” he wrote. “It gives us the chance to tell the story … of how the rule of law in English Canada was not plopped down fully formed from Mount Olympus but rather evolved in our own unique way. And it might be a source of wonder to those who might assume that all we do as lawyers is slavishly imitate what they do in England, that Ontario’s Law Society is actually older than the English one.”

The vote also coincides with the resignation of the Law Society’s chief executive officer, Robert Lapper, after almost six years in the position. He is to be replaced during the search for a successor by Diana Miles, executive director of organizational strategy and professional competence.